


Gentle

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [73]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Doctors, Gen, Unrequited Love, puppy crush, serious injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt!Fill. Modern AU.</p><p>She is a doctor, and she is going to save their lives, no matter how much it hurts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gentle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZpanSven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZpanSven/gifts).



There is a duality that comes from being an Assassin; Zahara grew up in the thick of it, despite herself. With her pale hair and soft features, she's a foreigner in the thick of Arabia; Papa tells her to be proud of it, because she is beautiful, but because she is so beautiful she must hide it, and so Zahara lingers between plain white dresses and just as common hijab, with only the barest splashes of color. The fringe is red, or her belt, or the cuffing.

 

And she is an Assassin, in part. In this modern age one does not have to kill to truly carry the title, and for all it connotes, Zahara learns to mend. Bones, flesh, minds. There is a lot that can be done with traditional medicines, and more that can be done with modern medicine, but for some things all that can heal is a pretty voice and time.

 

Even still, she learns to fight. Unlike others, she does not carry a hidden blade, and no one gives her a gun. She carries two daggers up her sleeves, a thicker, stronger blade and a thin one, butterfly light; hidden in her belt she holds five daggers to throw, because a woman who can fight back in these colors is a woman not to be trifled with, and would-be ruffians of Arabia know it. Her aim is good enough to deterr most.

 

Her early schooling is in the hallways of Masyaf's fortress; Zahara can remember following behind the Matrons and older girls, the ones who would be civilians or garden-girls or pickpockets or informants or healers. That's pretty much how things broke up in the fortress, for girls. Startlingly few did as her sister did, and became Assassins who fought and hunted.

 

Rami was good at it. Zahara had never wanted to do that, though. Which was just as well, because Papa had never wanted her to do it either, and Zahara never wants to use her blades for more than self defense. She doesn't begrudge them, though, but that's all the more proficient she wanted to be.

 

As she learns to mend, she also learns to rend. All the best medicines can kill, and she takes them to heart because she does not wish to kill, but she knows it all the same. Which doesn't stop her from learning, and her higher studies are an internship outside Masyaf, in Jerusalem.

 

Where Malik and Kadar are kept, both of them recovering, and Papa lets her go.

 

Modern medicine is a help where traditional medicine is not, because Malik has lost an arm but is awake and without infection, but Kadar is unconscious, and she does not need her teacher to read a medical chart. The accident shattered his legs, among other injuries; they are keeping him in a drug-induced coma to keep him still, to keep him without pain. But he is still alive, though barely; he is holding on by willpower alone.

 

Malik will not let them let him go.

 

For Zahara to ever take a life, it would be a gentle one. Perhaps it would be kinder to let Kadar die; her tutor is certain that if he lives, he will never walk again. He will be wheel-chair bound for his life.

 

It is not the life of an Assassin. To walk, to run, to climb, to chase, to kill; these are all part of an Assassin's life. Kadar will not be able to do any of them. For Assassins like they, like Rami, this is not a life.

 

Still, Zahara knows that if they let Kadar die-- slipped him a bit further into his coma, and let his heart rate flatten-- it would be gentle. Kind.

 

She also knows it would shatter Malik to loose him completely, and even stoned out of his mind, Malik would know. She knows for Rami to loose her partner would crush her sister. She knows for Papa to loose his student would wound his soul. And it is selfish to think of them, perhaps, but Zahara wants to harm not one of them, and wounds of the mind are wounds there is no medicine to heal.

 

It is gentler to save Kadar, no matter the fate he will suffer. For all their sakes.

 

So she does.

 

It is the hardest thing she has ever done.

 

And she is not gentle.


End file.
